


hold on tight (to what you know)

by svalswords



Series: changin' all the time, playin' with your mind [1]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-16 22:06:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16962360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/svalswords/pseuds/svalswords
Summary: he’s fifteen, in a world where he doesn’t belong, where he doesn’t even have a name.and then he's sixteen, and he can’t even trust the dark.





	hold on tight (to what you know)

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much to @othervio on tumblr for the prompt! this was honestly so much fun to write
> 
> this is the start of an au i'm doing, so don't expect explanations for what you're about to read. because i don't have them.

******part 1 - one road ends**

 

The light is my enemy.

 

It’s something I’ve known for a long, long time, ever since He found me one day, half-sunk in the damp, soggy ground, covered in mud.

 

Or so Vaati tells me, anyway. He says that Lord Ganon found me in the Octorok Bogs, well east of our hut, where the marshland is unstable and a single wrong step could be your undoing. He tells me about how nobody knew where I’d come from, about how nobody knows my parents, about how nobody ever named me.

 

But I guess that’s something to be expected. Plus, it isn’t as though there’s any confusion about who’s talking to who. It’s just me and Vaati, and there isn’t really much reason to venture outside any more, since the woods are thick and overrun with monsters. Vaati says he could protect us if both of us ever had to leave, but I’ve never seen him do his ‘wind magic’. “I only have so much power while we’re here,” he says. “I can’t waste it on a demonstration.”

 

I’m not really satisfied by that, so I continue to ask him about it. But he never relents, only ever using his magic outside of the hut, where I’m not allowed. Every time I ask him to show me, he tells me Lord Ganon has “something else in mind for you”. And, on my eleventh birthday, Vaati gave me my very own sword. Said he’d been saving up his magic to infuse it with. He was so proud of it when he handed it to me.

 

(And then I dropped it because my hands were shaking so much, and it chopped our table clean in two. He wasn’t so pleased any more.)

 

It’s just him and me in our hut - but most of the time, he’s out in the forest, gone for hours on end, only returning late into the evening (although it’s difficult to tell) with an armful of food. He refuses to tell me where it comes from, because I “don’t know the outside” and because “it’s different from anything you’ve seen before” and because “you’re fifteen, you’re too young”, and I just want to hit him sometimes because I’m _not_ too young. I can defend myself; I’ve been learning how to fight with a sword for four years. I don’t need him to restrict me.

 

But every day, it’s the same. We eat, he leaves, I practice all day, he comes back, we eat. And, every day, as we eat, he tells me the story of the Light World.

 

Everybody knows the Light World is evil. It’s full of criminals and monsters and wild, savage beasts - even more than the Dark World. “But you’re safe here,” Vaati reminds me. “You never need to leave. Promise me you’ll never leave.”

 

And, like a fool, I do.

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

Once a month, Lord Ganon comes to visit. Vaati always grumbles about it, shoving boxes underneath worktops, returning from the woods the night before with even more food, trying to pretend the most care he takes with anything isn’t the lazy buns he sets his hair up into in the mornings.

 

Lord Ganon arrives at sunrise and doesn’t leave until sundown. Vaati mutters something under his breath every time he hears His telltale booming laugh outside the door, going to welcome in Lord Ganon and his snivelling elf-servant Shadow.

 

Shadow takes the greatest pleasure in making my life an absolute hell. It’s like he’s psychic: he always knows _just_ how to turn every conversation into my worst nightmare, even when he has no way of knowing what he announces. Like the time he let everyone know I wanted to dye my hair like Vaati’s when I was eight, the only reason I remember that being because Vaati’s face went a funny colour and he gave me a big, silent hug when the pair left at sunset.

 

Lord Ganon asks me the techniques I’ve been practicing, and then has me show him on the worn-out practice dummy Vaati keeps in a cupboard and only brings out for His visits. He then says something cryptic along the lines of “you’re almost ready, but not yet”, and Vaati’s mouth falls into a straight line and his eyes seem to burn a hole into the side of Lord Ganon’s skull.

 

Lord Ganon asks me to tell him the story of the Light World, occasionally interjecting to add in things like “and we’re fortunate to be sealed away” and “the maidens had wicked, wicked powers”. Shadow gives him a long, odd look and He tries to change the subject, but none of us really forget the implications.

 

Lord Ganon asks me what I’d do if anything happened to Vaati. Vaati spits out, “that will never happen”, and it’s time for Him to leave.

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

On my sixteenth birthday, Vaati’s waiting for me at the table, sat stiffly as though forced into the position by an invisible presence.

 

“Ganon has decided you’re old enough,” he tells me hollowly.

 

And though I don’t know what he means, it feels like my world is draining away.

 

 

 

**part 2 - another begins**

 

 

 ****I’m stood in a clearing in the middle of an unknown forest and I think to myself that this might be how I die.

 

Even the space three feet in front of me is obscured through the rain and wind pelting down on me, and I can hardly breathe as the air is pushed out of my lungs and swept away almost instantaneously.

 

The darkness no longer feels like an ally.

 

Vaati is stood behind me, quietly observing the way I freeze at every rustle of the grass, every cry from the distance, every howl of the wind.

 

“Good luck,” he calls out above the rushing of the wind, the cracks in his hushed tones piercing through the continuous noise. I can hear his footsteps from behind me, growing fainter and fainter.

 

(They stop for a moment, and I’m convinced he’s had a change of heart. But then the sound never comes back, and I feel a dull ache when I realise he’s gone forever.)

 

It’s dark in the forest, somehow darker than in our hut. The rain continues to lash down on me as I trundle through the wreaths of overgrown grass; the long blades are rough like sandpaper against my legs and every step feels harder than the one before it.  I don’t know where I’m going, but I know I have to find somewhere safe.

 

(Vaati was safe, but now he’s left me in the wilderness to die.)

 

(I shouldn’t be surprised, really.)

 

(So did my parents.)

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

The rain’s just beginning to ease up when I trip over the roots of an enormous, gnarled tree and land head-first in the mud. “Nice going,” I mutter to myself, heaving myself up from the ground and reaching around for my sword.

 

My...sword.

 

Wait.

 

Where’s my sword?

 

It was in its sheath on my belt…

 

…

 

...fuck.

 

I reach around in the mud, my hands and upper arms sinking back into the burbling mass. But it was no use.

 

I’ve lost my sword.

 

The one thing I had left from Vaati.

 

What was I going to do if I ran into monsters? I couldn’t exactly fistfight them. I mean, yeah, I was _decently_ strong, but I’d never even met any monsters. Vaati had only ever told me about them over dinner. There was this one that was blood-red, and it had wild claws, and it spat out jagged stones at you if you approached it. What was I going to do, kick the stone back at it?

 

My one defense against evil is gone, and I’m pretty much dead.

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

It’s been two days since Vaati abandoned me in the clearing, and I’ve been saved.

 

Well. Not really.

 

I’d ran into a woman in an overgrown meadow, picking wildflowers and cramming hundreds of them into tiny glass bottles stopped with small corks. She’d invited me back to her house, a rundown shack in a corner of the woods with twisted spires and a door that looked almost like patchwork.

 

Her name’s Irene, and as she poured me some murky black tea that she refused to let me turn down - “you’ll waste it, there’s plenty of people around here that have killed for this” - she told her story.

 

“I was a traveller,” she whispers between sips of the tea, “from a distant land. I didn’t mean to come here.” She pauses, as if trying to remember something she’d long forgotten, before adding, “Nobody means to come here. Nobody _should_ mean to. This world is horrible.”

 

I freeze, my teacup dangling from its handle which I have clasped between my fingers, a few drops splattering down onto the floor which was covered in tiny glass bottles. Something’s wrong here. “This world?”

 

“This world,” she echoes, nodding sagely. “The Dark World. It never should have happened. It was all a terrible mistake.”

 

I know something was wrong as soon as she finishes talking. She’s from the Light World. She _has_ to be. I have to get away as soon as I could.

 

But I don’t say that. I say, “What’s it like?”

 

Irene eyes me curiously, dark eyes flashing. “Why do you want to know?”

 

And I don’t know what to tell her. So I say, “Because I want to see it.”

 

And as her mouth forms the one word that will change my life forever, there’s a part of me that doesn’t think it’s a lie.

 

_“Hyrule.”_

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

Irene bids me farewell with an ancient, ink-splattered map and a letter penned in flowing blue ink. “It’s very important,” she says as she hands it to me. “You’ll know who to give it to. Or, _she_ will.”

 

I frown, turning the letter to read the name on the front. The characters are completely foreign to me, and I feel my heart sink. “Do they speak another language?”

 

“Yes and no,” she tells me. “Hylian isn’t so different from your language. You’ll know what I mean when you arrive.”

 

(Again with the cryptics. Some people shouldn’t be allowed to give directions.)

 

“You’ll need to go north,” she instructs me, pointing to a large red X on the map. “That’s where the Hylian Sanctuary is. When you reach it, the Princess will be waiting for you.”

 

“But how did _you_ arrive here?” I ask her. “And how can you still communicate with Hyrule?”

 

“I have a connection to the Royal Family. A magic link. The saviour of our people.”

 

It’s a good an answer as any, so I give her a big hug, murmur a thank you and leave to walk through the Dark World for the last time.

 

 

**part 3 - and takes you to a better place**

 

 

 

It takes me a little over a day to reach the Sanctuary. I try my hardest to avoid encountering any monsters along the way, which takes me around a mountain and through a river that I could have avoided entirely. Irene’s flask of tea never seems to go cold, and the taste even kind of grows on me.

 

Kind of. It still mostly takes like wet moss, but it manages to overpower the tang of blood that's sat there since I left Vaati.

 

As I walk up to the Sanctuary, I can feel the familiar sinking feeling of dread within the pit of my stomach. The old stone entrance looms before me, ivy growing through cracks in the brickwork. A plaque is mounted on the one remaining wall, and I try to read the faded text.

 

_In hon...f the unio....or providing b….nd withhold…_

 

I’m not having any luck, and if I stay outside glaring at some engraved bronze letters, I’m never going to meet the Princess. So I tear myself away from the plaque and step inside the Sanctuary.

 

The stone tiles are slick with moss and I wander gingerly through the entrance hall. Ahead of me is a raised platform and a few steep steps, and I climb them in one jump, entering the large, circular room at the back of the ruins.

 

The room is bare, except for the figure of a woman standing in the very centre. She seems to be almost glowing, radiating light, and I consider turning back for a moment.

 

The light is our enemy.

 

The light is _my_ enemy.

 

The light will destroy everything we hold close to us.

 

But then the woman turns to face me, and she smiles, and my heart stops. Not because she smiled at me - I mean, sure, she was pretty, but as Shadow chose to reveal to everyone three months ago, boys are more my thing - but because she asks me a question.

 

“Are you the link Irene sent for me?” she calls out to me. “I’ve been expecting you.”

 

Wait.

 

Irene told me she had a link to Hyrule. But she never said what it was.

 

Is it me?  Am _I_ the connection with this whole other world?

 

I'm only sixteen. I can't be the link. I can't be the one supposed to save Hyrule. I don't even have a  _name_.

 

I can't...

 

…

 

Why can't I?

 

“Yes,” I answer her firmly. “I’m the link.”

 

Silence.

 

“Well, then,” she finally replies, beaming even more, “take my hand, Link.”

 

And I do.

  
****


End file.
